OK This may end up being a long post – so if you feel the urge to scroll on by please feel free to do so – BUT I AM JUST SO FRECKIN PROUD OF MYSELF that I feel I just have to share. First – my thanks as always to my wonderful trainer Grant Jansen for everything he has done to get me to this point – BUT – in a phenomenal first, I am NOT going to give him the credit for this one because I DID EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE 1000 REPS he set for us today MYSELF!! There … I am taking FULL CREDIT for having completed to the end of today’s SPRINT/SUPER/BEAST workout. (Ok Grant when you pick yourself up off the floor from the shock of reading that statement, please give yourself a pat on the back for having brought me so far that I can actually say that!) More so, I am proud that I was able to complete it in a positive mindset, acknowledging that I struggled at times, but did NOT allow the frustration to reduce me to tears, fear or panic. (There WERE a few tears when I got I’m not ashamed to say – but they were happy tears as the enormity of what I had achieved began to sink in and the emotion of it hit home) When we started out today Grant explained the significance of wanting to do this ‘Hurt Locker’ mega workout, as being the 7th December today is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbour. He shared with us some statistics of that attack and explained he wanted us to push ourselves beyond anything we had ever done before, to test ourselves Mind and Body - and every single Warrior present stepped up to the mark, and I know for me that when I started to struggle I allowed myself to reflect on how much everyone involved in that attack, whether they were military or civilian, would have struggled that day, and what would have happened if they simply quit! And I dug deeper and found more! I had turned up with one aim in mind today – to get through the “Sprint” section of the workout and then continue to do as much of the Super as I could in whatever time was left ………… and to do one 10m Bear Crawl non-stop! I totally nailed that one…. TWICE …………… and then did a half dozen more 5m ones to make it 50M in total! The session was titled Beyond the Unknown – and I wanted to see just how much the past 12 weeks in Bootcamp had really taught me. 12 weeks ago I couldn’t do a full Burpee; ‘knees to chest’ on the chin up bar involved me standing on a box and tentatively trying to lift my feet clear of the box for a couple of seconds while I tried to support my weight hanging from the bar; I’d never heard of a Donkey Kick (except of course the actual animal kind); a dead ball was something that I might find in the backyard after our dog had chewed it to bits; wall balls was a game that I used to play when I was a kid that involved throwing a basket ball or tennis ball above a certain spot on a wall and catching it on the rebound; and I had only just been recently introduced to kettle bells and some of what they could be used for. Now as it usually takes me twice as long to complete a full set of reps as anyone else, and there had been an hour allocated for the Sprint section of the workout, I was calculating it might take me up to 2hrs to complete the Sprint. (Grant and I had discussed this and he had assured me that I could work at my own pace and take as much time as I needed too as the others would be working out for up to 4 hrs to complete the total session including the Ultra Beast (which was a complete repeat of the Sprint / Super and Beast Sets = 2000 reps) For the sprint there were 500 reps in total and we could tackle them in any order we liked and break them down into smaller sets, switching between the exercises until all reps were completed. This meant that when I started to struggle with one exercise I could leave it if necessary and go do something else and come back to it later (but generally I pushed myself to complete the number of reps that I had decided to do for that set) The 500 reps included; 25 x Wall Balls – surprisingly like my childhood game and an exercise I enjoy – but it is done with a heavier ball – I usually use a 15lb ball, but as I had decided to go heavy today (to use the heaviest weight I could handle in all the exercises that used equipment) I elected to use the 20lb ball, and didn’t try to catch every rebound but allowed it to fall through my hands to the floor. I did however place EVERY rep above the line on the wall. 25 x push-ups with toe touch – made more difficult for me as I still do push-ups on my knees – which meant I then had to rise up to my toes to do the toe touch part. 50 Steps up to a Knee Height box (the other Warriors were doing their normal Box Jumps) 75 x Dead Ball Slams (a dead ball is a rubber ball about the size of a basket ball or a bit bigger filled with iron sand – you squat down and pick It up raise it above your head and slam it down – I chose to use the 20kg ball today (usually only use 12-15kg) 75 x Kettle Bell swings – 16kg bell (and one of my favourite exercises) 100m Sled Push ( not sure what weight this was today but I think that Santa has stacked in on LOL) 100 x Tyre flips jumping (or in my case stepping) into the centre of the tyre and out again after each flip. And I did this all in 60mins 56secs!!!!!!!!!!! – So I figured that gave me around 3 hrs to tackle the Super –which was an additional 250 reps spread over 4 exercises: 25m Monkey Bar; 50 x Kettle Bell Thrusters, 75 x Donkey Kicks and 100m Dead ball roll. As I am still unable to swing on the bars that is where I did the 50m Bear Crawl. My Kettle Bell thrusters (hold the bell at chest height and lift it up above head height) I did 25 with a 12kg bell (have only just started using this weight – used to be 10 kg) and 25 with a 16kg bell. Donkey Kicks (also sometimes called Wall Kicks) require you to balance on you hands and kick up and back with your feet onto a wall – the variation of these that I did was to step my feet up one at a time. And rolling a 45kg ball along rubber mats for 100m is no easy task. And I could barely believe it when I realised that the time clock was only showing 116mins 33secs when I completed all this. Still 2 hrs to go so I figured what the hell – might as well have a crack at the Beast and see how much I could do of that. The Beast involved another 250 reps bring the total to 1000, and guess what – it involved BURPEES!! 25 x Box Jump Burpees – and as I only do step ups this meant Step up – Step down – do a burpee and repeat by 25 times! 50 x Burpee Chin-ups – or in my case Knees to chest. And in 12weeks I have come a VERY long way. Today Knees to Chest saw me confidently stepping onto a small stool to grab the bar the taking my full body weight in a hanging position as I raised my knees to above the height of my hips ON EVERY SINGLE REP!! (and of course stepping down and doing a Burpee between each one! 75 x BURPEES!!!!!! (Well I did say it was the BEAST!! – you either love them of hate them LOL) 1000m run (broken down into 2 x 10m sets) The clock had ticked over to 3hrs and 24 mins by the time I had completed this and I finished just after one of the others had completed the Ultra Beast (yeah all the above x 2 and I did say is takes me twice as long LOL) but I FINISHED THE BEAST!!!!! And I also want to say thank-you not just to Grant, but to Wendy, Josh, Donna, Hamish, Jo, Susan, Gibbo and Lisa for the high fives, the pats on the back, the smiles, nods and words of encouragement and for helping me to FEEL like an equal member of the team and truly deserving of my Warrior name FEARLESS. I owe you all (and a few who weren’t there today) a debt of gratitude for enabling me to ACCEPT that I belong there. Yes today has been a HUGE step forward for me and taken me past the point of no return. I have gone Beyond the Unknown and will continue to do so because it hold endless possibilities of what ‘could be’ for me. I no longer feel that I have ‘a long way to go’ because the reality is in part I am already there as this is not a journey with a final destination. It is about travelling through life and exploring the possibilities and appreciating all the little gifts that we are given along the way and learning from the obstacles we encounter (now I just have to learn how to climb walls and move past my apprehension of getting stuck on the top – or at least learn to relax and enjoy the view while I work out how to get down). It’s about understanding that I AM DESERVING of the friendship and support that others offer me and that I have found at Workout Warrior Fitness, and allowing myself to embrace it. And I can only say that if you have read all the way to this point – then THANK- YOU TO YOU too – for joining me on this crazy journey of my life. And please if you – or someone you know – is struggling with physical or emotional issues – don’t isolate yourself and think you have to hide it from the world – life is too short to be struggling needlessly when there are really wonderful people out there willing to lend a hand. From now on my life will definitely be about more than just surviving AROO!!
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 11:42:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015